


Like a Frog

by htebazytook



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: F/M, Het, Humor, Lady GaGa - Freeform, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Romance, Smut, Songfic, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 16:04:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htebazytook/pseuds/htebazytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my twisted version of a songfic.  (It's not really a songfic.)  In which Chris is addicted to his phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Frog

**Title:** Like a Frog  
 **Author:** htebazytook  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:** Warnings: Derogatory language. Essentially non-explicit het.  
 **Pairing:** Zach/Chris, Chris/Beau  
 **Author's Notes:** This is my twisted version of a songfic. (It's not really a songfic.) In which Chris is addicted to his phone.

 

Chris wakes up slow and lazy that morning, opens his eyes and finds himself wishing it were earlier. It used to be that he longed for the bygone days of sleeping in like a lazy entitled asshole, but now that they'd returned all he wanted was a blaring alarm reminding him he had places to go and people to impress.

Time to check the old cell phone:

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **where you at?**   
> 

> I'm rolling my eyes right now, just so you know. Jeff's Malibu place

> With Beau

>   
>  **having fun?**   
> 

> Fuck you. There's not actually anything weird about liking the beach

>   
>  **"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her." good luck and may the force be with you.**   
> 

> Oh shit I know this one. Oh goddammit

>   
>  **i'm sending you another lady gaga thing.**   
> 

> Please don't

>   
>  **it's gonna being the next big thing, christopher.**   
> 

> Just because you're gay doesn't mean you're some kind of popular culture psychic

>   
>  **actually it does.**   
> 

>   
>  **listen to this though, for real.**   
> 

> Saying "for real" doesn't make you cool either

Zach sends him the mp3.

Door closing in the distance—Beau claiming dominion over the bathroom. Chris figures he'd better make coffee, locks his phone and puts it in a fake fruit bowl away from potential spillage. Wonders how much the stupid hardwood in the ultra modern kitchen cost and wonders how much Jeff would even care if Chris fucked it up in some way—it's just a lease to Jeff, but to Chris it's a very 4.5 lease.

His phone woodblocks imploringly to him and Chris opens the new text with $20 creamer in his other hand.

CHO-CHO TRAIN

>   
> 
> 
> **Rise and shine, asshole.**   
> 

> Go fuck yourself, sensei, I can wake up early when I want to. That time we shot a fucking movie, for example

>   
> 
> 
> **You're a filthy racist, Pine.**   
> 

>   
> 
> 
> **Where you at?**   
> 

> Malibu

>   
> 
> 
> **Nice.**   
> 

> Beau wanted to go, I just came to get out of the city

>   
> 
> 
> **Oh boo hoo, Mr. Thoreau, life is fucking hard.**   
> 

> TWSS

>   
> 
> 
> **And you bitch when people say "for real?" Not even a hot, if douchetastic, piece of ass like you could force such an acronym to catch on among non-frat boys.**   
> 

> Well the joke's on you because Zach totally does it too

>   
> 
> 
> **Falsehood.**   
> 

> So it shall be written, so it shall be done

>   
> 
> 
> **Not really.**   
> 

> Yeah huh—the Secret and shit

>   
> 
> 
> **Did you see the new TV spot??**   
> 

> No dumbass I've been holed up here all weekend

>   
> 
> 
> **TWSS**   
> 

> See

> Anyway who cares it's just a stupid promo thing

> I'm sick of doing this shit already and the tour hasn't even started

>   
> 
> 
> **I can literally hear what a petulant brat you are from here.**   
> 

> Yeah so maybe you should just ask me out already and get it over with, Cho

>   
> 
> 
> **Oh you'd like that wouldn't you?**   
> 

"Is it ready yet?" Beau asks from the gigantic archway to the guest suite. She takes showers at the speed of light, unlike any girl he's ever known. Chris likes that.

She thinks she's being sexy with her mostly open a robe and her hair damp and down. Chris creates a smile and a certain look just for her and sets about pouring coffee.

Phone. Beau sighs and takes her mug into the other room. Chris is annoyed she's annoyed, sits at the granite breakfast bar to text properly.

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **it's gorgeous.**   
> 

> TWSS

>   
>  **you're an infant. it's gorgeous OUTSIDE and it's not even technically spring yet.**   
> 

> Ok so you know we're in California right

>   
>  **i'm dismissing that with an imperious wave of my hand.**   
> 

> Gay

>   
>  **faggot.**   
> 

> So what you've actually been outside today, like, before noon

>   
>  **remember that time i had a dog?**   
> 

>   
>  **but yeah i dunno when spring shows up i always forget about it and it brings joy to my ornery heart.**   
> 

> What are you the Grinch or something

>   
>  **so do you have a comeback for me or what?**   
> 

> My dear Zachary, these things DO take one's time and careful consideration

>   
>  **you're so fucking weird.**   
> 

> K well you enjoy your heartwarming dog shit scooping epiphanies Ok

>   
>  **k.**   
> 

> And ps it's Oscar fucking Wilde WHAT IS UP

> Ok beach time

>   
>  **i hope you drown in front of someone really famous.**   
> 

Chris snorts and goes to pocket his phone, forgets about the long-standing rift between sweatpants and pockets and consequently his phone case shatters apart on the hardwood. He crouches to snap it back on and snickers a little at the possibility of actually denting the floor.

Beau sighs from above. Chris looks up and watches her rinse her mug in the stainless steel farmhouse sink, mutter, walk away. Smells her Elizabeth Arden deodorant and thinks about fucking her and follows her echoingly through the house to apologize with an orgasm or two.

*

They're driving back, traveling fluidly through murder-famous streets and VIP communities to the sunny, congested highway. Beau's driving, and Chris's been listening to her most of the way and ignoring his incoming texts most valiantly indeed. But he inevitably caves and listen to the background instead—that stupid song Zach was (lol) gaga for came on. The latest one as of this week, that is, but Chris figures he may as well listen.

 

_I can't help myself_  
I'm addicted to a life of material  
It's some kind of joke  
I'm obsessively opposed to the typical 

_All we care about is_  
Runway models, cadillacs and liquor bottles  
Give me something, I wanna be  
Retro glamour, Hollywood, yes we live for the 

_Fame, doin' it for the fame_  
'cause we wanna live the life  
Of the rich and famous  
Fame, doin' it for the fame  
'cause we got a taste for champagne  
And endless fortune 

_Fame, fame baby_  
The fame, fame  
We live for the fame, fame baby  
The fame, fame  
Isn't it a shame, shame baby  
A shame, shame  
In it for the fame, fame baby  
The fame, fame 

_I can see myself in the movies_  
With my picture in the city lights  
Photograph my mind  
And whatever else you'd like to shoot  
You decide 

 

"Is that your phone?"

"I dunno," Chris says. Knows. "Maybe it was yours. Whatever."

God Chris hates the way she sighs, looking at the road and talking: "I don't _mind_ it when you text. I just mind being ignored."

_Go not to the Elves for counsel,_ Chris thinks, _for they will say both yes and no._ Wants to call her an Elf and laments the lowering standards of his two-person book club with Zach, remembers:

 

_"Are we really out of classics already?" Chris had said._

_"'A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.'"_

_Chris had rolled his eyes._

_"Anyway fuck off, Tolkien is a classic."_

_"Geek."_

_"Fag hag."_

 

It hits him. "Transcendentalism!" Chris says, accidentally out loud.

"Huh?" 

He opens his phone and scrolls through unread texts:

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **so how was malibu? i presume you'll be investing in some future real estate as we speak.**   
> 

>   
>  **cho is way too excited about being on TV. i certainly never get that turned on about it. oh wait that's right i'm on a show that's actually entitled heroes.**   
> 

>   
>  **surely he knows they only included him to fulfill their affirmative action quota.**   
> 

>   
>  **noah just brought me a shirt instead of his ball. it's that "i'm with stupid" shirt in french, remember?**   
> 

B'S GAY HUSBAND

>   
>  **Hey guys it was great having you. Come back whenever, but seriously don't forget that 3.9 place on Inland Lane is up for lease soon. It's a good investment and I know the agent so I can definitely set something up if you're interested. Thanks, Jeff.**   
> 

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **ugh i'm getting sick of not having a facebook. everyone keeps telling me to look at albums and shit. hey is jennifer letting you de-secrify yours yet?**   
> 

CHO-CHO TRAIN

>   
>  **OMG they're playing it!**   
> 

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **we should totally read the hobbit next. get the whole geeky package.**   
> 

>   
>  **you know, to match my own geeky package. ;-).**   
> 

>   
>  **END SCENE. now do you see how annoying lame textual trends are? i hope we've learned something here today.**   
> 

>   
>  **ps cho is a fucking faggot.**   
> 

CHO-CHO TRAIN

>   
>  **QUINTO IS SO FUCKING HOMOSEXUAL IT'S RIDICK. SEE WHAT I DID THERE?**   
> 

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **so when are you getting back for real? let's get dinner.**   
> 

THE ANGEL JENNIFER

>   
>  **Hey Chris. Just a reminder about the press conference Thursday—it's definitely at 2 now, and it's not changing back. Thanks.**   
> 

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **hey what are you wearing on Thursday?**   
> 

Chris blinks at the information overload, can't pick out any one thing he wants to address so he just opens a new text:

ZACH Q., ESQ.

> "Whatever satisfies the soul is truth." Also I'm all booked for tonight sorry

>   
>  **hoom hoom, very interesting.**   
> 

>   
>  **it's cool—i understand you've got it do your research on the real estate market n at.**   
> 

> I've said it before and I'll say it again WHAT A FUCKING GEEK now good day sir

*

Chris is sure such intensely, well, _pop_ pop has heretofore never had its way with his poor virgin stereo system. Zach just sits there on Chris's new leather couch like he owns it and bobs his head to the music like a teenager, and I mean, he does kinda look the part. Minus the body hair.

"You know what?"

"Yes," Chris says gravely.

"Fuck you," Zach says. "I'm for real mostly just excited about flying so much, like, for real."

"For real?"

"Fo' sho'."

"Oh, God."

"You know like when you're stuck on a long flight with people and you all like stand around in the back and play cards and that? I dunno, it's a bonding experience or something."

"What is this, the fucking babysitter's club?"

Zach affects affront. "You're a womanizer. Oh, womanizer." Chris just looks at him. "You. You you are."

"Okay, I'm just gonna nip this in the bud right here and now by ignoring you," Chris says. Zach snickers. "Anyway, I don't really like flying. I'm not like afraid of it or anything, I'm just over it, I dunno."

"You're immune to the glamour of stardom already?" Zach translates.

"Dude I'm just dispassionate about planes either way. Don't worry, I still enjoy roller coasters and video games."

"Well, to be fair I only worry about that because you're not ten years old. For all that you look it."

Chris shrugs. "At least I know how to groom myself—" His phone jungle-jingles at him. "Ah fuck, forgot to turn it off. . ."

"Dude you can answer it, I don't care," Zach laughs. Indeed, all that ridiculous bobbing to the music seems to be his chief priority.

BEAU

>   
>  **it's not fucking funny.**   
> 

"Oh jeez," Chris mutters.

"Wha-a-at?" Zach asks, except he sings it along to the _can't read my_ in Poker Face.

BEAU

> Kinda is

"Nothing. Beau's pissed at me."

Zach gives him a weird look. Might just be weird 'cause he's got eyebrows again. Chris had really hated dying his hair blond, but he never had much justification for whining about it in the face of Zach's, you know, face. Now, however, he looks like a real person or like something's less fictional about him or more manly or something—the main thing is that it's throwing Chris off a little.

BEAU

>   
>  **so basically u think ur career is a big joke.**   
> 

> I don't think what we do constitutes a career but yeah

>   
>  **well that's all well and good Chris, however it's also tends to be pretty stupid when ur lecturing others on the emptiness of their accomplishments because, what, u can now?**   
> 

> Ok so number one I don't think anybody at that stupid premiere took it as seriously as you apparently did

>   
>  **so I'm not allowed to be offended when my boyfriend criticizes what I do for a living in front of some pretty fucking influential people?**   
> 

> OMG nevermind I'll never tell a joke within earshot of you ever again Beau Jesus

Chris puts his phone down on the terribly mahogany coffee table once and for all and collapses with a sigh on the couch. Zach offers a sympathetic pat. "Chicks, man . . ."

"You wouldn't know." Zach's cheering him up, though.

"Nu uh—I would know. And I know more, actually." He stretches to fold his arms behind his head, textbook douchebag. "They think it's safe to tell me every idiotic detail of their personal lives as though they like, _totally_ understand the plight of the gay man because they also happen to be a fan of cock on Facebook. Or at least gave it a couple of Likes."

"So you are on Facebook now, huh?"

"Ja."

Chris makes a face. "There's a plight of the gay man in Silver Lake?"

"Shut up."

In the silence between the tracks Chris says, "Beau fucking hates Lady Gaga."

*

KITKAT

>   
>  **hey mom says you should use that intense hiking duffel bag for the tour and come by and get it, but she really just wants to see you so you'd better or I'll never hear the end of it**   
> 

> K. Saturday? 

>   
>  **yeah, probably. You bringing Beau**   
> 

> IDK maybe

>   
>  **k**   
> 

CHO-CHO TRAIN

>   
>  **Hey have you seen Zach since last weekend?**   
> 

THE ANGEL JENNIFER

>   
>  **Thanks for sending it in again—we'll be in touch.**   
> 

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **yours was whitman. here: "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."**   
> 

>   
>  **hey did you see obama's thing?**   
> 

>   
>  **ok that sounded dirty but i refuse to take it back because really who among us wouldn't hit that?**   
> 

>   
>  **except for that racist little chink jonathan cho perhaps.**   
> 

CHO-CHO TRAIN

>   
>  **Fyi? Zach just committed a hate crime against me.**   
> 

> Insult his Irishness to mix things up a little

>   
>  **Lol k.**   
> 

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **hey did i ever tell you about my dream about Tabatha Coffey? she insulted me and I got this warm fuzzy feeling . . .**   
> 

> That's it, I'm putting Bravo on parental control. Now go to your room

>   
>  **i've been a bad boy?**   
> 

> So bad, baby

>   
>  **that's hot.**   
> 

> Blarg, I'm now picturing you with a Paris Hilton wig and Noah in a tutu 

>   
>  **you mean that doesn't do it for you?**   
> 

MATTHEW J. FUCKTARD

>   
>  **Yo we still fucking on 4 2nite?**   
> 

> Fuck yes. Bring your fucking game face, asshole

>   
>  **If by my fucking game face u mean my fucking sweet new fucking guitar then fuck yeah!**   
> 

> I'll bring the fucking original fucking game too

>   
>  **Yeah whatever i'll c u fucking then, dickface.**   
> 

>   
>  **And don't forget the fucking white zinfandel, goddammit.**   
> 

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **wanna come over tomorrow for an epic dog walking quest? noah's making puppy dog eyes at me like he misses your badly shaven face.**   
> 

> That's probably because he's a puppy dog but yeah sure I've got a lunch date but I can be there by 2

"Chris?" Beau says, breaking his textual reverie.

"Sorry." But his phone buzzes again halfway to his pocket.

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **that's hot.**   
> 

> So I've gotta go purge after that last mental image —see you then and don't forget to dress like a blind and/or mentally disturbed person and embarrass me in public. So just whatever you'd normally wear

Chris stows his phone in his pocket again. He doesn't know why people always text him so much at lunch time. Then again, it's probably because they've learned he'll respond. Whoopsies.

"Beau. . ."

"I'm not mad," she says, pissily calm.

Chris sighs, skewers some inconsequential food with his fork and bites into it, surprised it's gone cold by now and feels a little guilty.

*

"See, isn't this easy?"

"Never said it wasn't?" Chris raises an eyebrow, imagines that Noah's echoing that sentiment doggily.

It's nice, though, dog shit aside. No wonder Zach's always so fucking zen—when you've allotted specific times of day for thinking and walking and being in nature it reminds you that all your stress is almost completely fabricated by your own stupid made up inner world.

"So how are things with Beau?"

Chris frowns. Zach asks him how things are in general all the time, usually implying his girlfriend, but this strikes him as oddly blunt. "Fine."

"Mm." Noah tries to pursue a squirrel and Zach tells him to heel.

Chris studies the sidewalk, feels childhood radiating up from it—bike rides and hopscotch with his sister and caring only about earning a Happy Meal through good behavior. And the earth beneath the cement reminds him that he's small and mortal and has no reason not to be happy.

"Actually, I." Zach looks at him and it startles words away.

"Yeah?"

"I dunno, I just feel weird about her lately. She stopped, like. I dunno."

Zach could've said _I believe they call it "putting out"_ or something but instead he seems to hold his breath, acts like he's afraid to say anything in the way he watches Noah pad merrily down the sidewalk.

"I dunno," Chris sighs. "I used to try to make her happy or whatever but it hasn't worked in a long time and. Yeah. Like, she doesn't like anything I do anymore, basically."

"Yeah, I mean, what are you d—" Zach cuts himself off. "That sucks."

"I." He shrugs, makes a sound even he can't quite identify.

There's silence for a while, nothing but the smell of grass and a smorgasbord of status vehicles zooming by on their way to somewhere more statusy.

"Park?" Zach asks.

"Yeah. I'm so sick of working out that I might actually sit down on that hipster as fuck bench."

Zach sighs like someone's got cancer. "You're a fucking pussy of an action star."

Chris laughs, looks at him while they wait to cross the street.

 _Kinship_ is a weird word that nobody ever considers, but it popped up constantly in Lord of the Rings. And when Chris looks into Zach's brown eyes the only good word for that feeling he gets is "kinship". This purely comfortable rush of excitement, not wild or uncertain or confused by labels.

*

Beau's got designer shades that hide her face like she thinks she's cooler than him. And who wears an Escada bathing suit? Who actually wears that? And that stupid wrap she let drag in the damp sand was 100% silk and designed by someone chicly unpronounceable. Meanwhile, Chris wears 5-year-old cargo pants with a hole in the pocket and his favorite hat, watching her. She never used to dress like this.

"I'm just, you know, apprehensive," Chris is saying. "I don't think you can prepare for fame."

Beau sighs. "Yeah, well, maybe you should stop moping about it and start being appreciative. Some of us bend over backwards just to get a job let alone a career-changing break, so." She's hurt, but Chris is more hurt that she isn't hearing him and that blocks any potential contriteness.

She never used to _be_ like this. He can't penetrate the black plastic lenses that shield her, remembers when he used to look into her eyes and think greenly of romance and perfect moments, used to think she looked like an upgraded Madonna and flatter her and want her constantly.

They fall into silence, and eventually he figures that he might as well match her sartorial douchbaggery with the perfect accessory, pulls out his phone:

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **so i've been thinking and maybe we should read some of the star wars novels next instead.**   
> 

> Number one, you're a traitor. Number two, just because we're on the cusp of a tidal wave of geeky attention doesn't mean we have to be geeks ourselves

>   
>  **no, but it's certainly a valid-sounding excuse to read stuff that's fun.**   
> 

>   
>  **and trekkers are not GEEKS, my good man.**   
> 

> You know it's truly amazing how much I don't care

>   
>  **hoom hum well fine then. say, christopher, where you at?**   
> 

> Beach. Like actual beach with sand

>   
>  **yeah well i hope you make a shitty fucking sand castle in front of somebody really famous then.**   
> 

Chris doesn't have to glance up to tell that Beau's paying more attention to other guys on the beach. She probably thinks he's texting someone about her, doesn't she? And well, he's beginning to obsess a little bit so she isn't that far off, really.

He puts his phone away. "So would you rather I just left so you can strut more fashionably and unhindered by the likes of me? Or do you want to actually, I dunno, speak to me?"

Beau probably makes a face at that but Chris can't tell with the sunglasses covering up her green eyes.

"Well excuse me for attempting to enjoy the scenery."

Chris laughs, fundamentally pissed off.

"I don't know why you always try to start a fight," she says, and to Chris it sounds fucking arrogant. He pulls his phone back out.

The sun sets and brings with it a sinking feeling in the pit of Chris's stomach that he can't quite put a finger on. He takes Beau home and they have good, if predictable, sex and the part where her Escada bikini top falls to the flagstone feels terribly artistic.

Hours later Chris wakes up at the buzz of his phone, and she's not around.

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
>  **hurry up and guess so i can say "riddle me this!" because i've got a good one. and yes, i've been watching batman movies on tv.**   
> 

KITKAT

>   
>  **mom's pissed at you. Dumbass.**   
> 

THE ANGEL JENNIFER

>   
>  **Just tell them to look at section 2. Thanks.**   
> 

BEAU

>   
>  **I had to go back early.**   
> 

Beau is always busy. Chris isn't too bothered though—he's got her all figured out. And she doesn't seem too bothered with him anymore, either.

ZACH Q., ESQ.

> Samuel Langhorne Clemens. 

> "This above all; to thine own self be true." 

>   
>  **shakespeare. you're getting sloppy in your old age dude.**   
> 

*

Chris tries to sleep for hours. He tries C-SPAN, he tries music, hell, he even tries reading more Lord of the Rings. It's all that sleeping in late—it's messing with his internal clock.

At first it's just annoying, but somewhere between the couch and his bed and 3 in the morning it becomes irrationally infuriating, and somewhere after that a black mood settles on Chris and he can think only in heartracingly pessimistic impulses. It's a wonder that he sleeps at all—which he does, eventually.

. . . And wakes soon thereafter with a start and a tight and terribly urgent sense of panic in his chest, and the only thing for it is to get as far away as possible, no matter that physical distance won't help. Chris doesn't even remember driving.

And Zach won't answer his door—of course he won't, it's the middle of the fucking night, duh, fuck—Chris digs his phone out.

ZACH Q., ESQ.

> Wake up

> Hey wake up I'm outside

Something small snaps in his head and he has to rant aloud for a minute: "Urrrrrrgggh oh my fucking _God_. _Fucking_ —" He scrolls through the whole fucking alphabet to call him.

"What?" Zach slurs, staticy. They never actually _talk_ on the phone and it's weird.

"Can I come in. I mean, I'm outside. Can you—"

Zach seems to wake right up. "Hold on."

The door opens seconds later, like he'd run, and Chris's heartbeat gets caught up in his panic at the sudden sight of Zach disheveled in the doorway. Because it's weird to not be texting him or something.

Zach looks at him like he's a ghost. "What the fuck?" And it's not said in the way people usually say it. Sounds soft and scared, but that could just be how Chris feels.

"I don't know," Chris says off to the side, heart surprised into racing again when Zach takes him by the hand and drags him into the foyer. There's no lights on and Zach is blue-skinned and black-eyed in a way that magnetizes you into looking at him. "I'm. I feel. Terminal ennui," he blurts.

"Good word," Zach says, automatic and distracted. He can't seem to not keep his hand in the vicinity of Chris's or stop looking at him with those brown eyes that make it so you never know what he's thinking and—

"Nobody thinks it's hard to be famous and it's just whiny entitled Lindsay Lohans, and—" Zach just lets him talk and looks enigmatically at him and Chris loves that—it's exactly what his compulsion needs to calm and subside. "I don't want this," he says, feels like he's possessed and can't tame his voice. "I don't want this. I don't want this _I don't want this._ " Big sigh, Zach's thumb brushing Chris's wrist. "I want real art and real . . . yeah, real reality. I need . . . I." They stare at one another for a minute. "I need a Walt Whitman quote."

Zach looks a little less solemn now, which is also calming. "You _need_ to get some fucking sleep. Dumbass."

Chris laughs, and he's fucking glad all that tension released through laughter instead of something embarrassingly girly.

*

Beau thinks she's so fucking cool.

Chris watches her bring the crystal glass to her lips and daydreams a little about the first time those lips had said _I love you_ , said something unfairly mean, the way she put overpriced lipstick on, the way she wraps them around his cock. She smiles at him with those lips above the rim of the glass but it doesn't feel like anything.

She's busy socializing, networking, modeling for the crowd with Chris and her Coach bag keeping company as accessories. Everyone's drinking martinis and Chris's remains untouched—he doesn't get as much of a kick out of alcohol as he used to, back when it had lain in uncharted, illegal territory. 

He doesn't care about impressing the people at fucking Marmont—he's wasted enough energy on being professional and hard-working and doing and saying all the right things only to realize that being an actor meant never not pretending, from talk shows to other actors to going silently along with the invention of hierarchies, fame, expectations. The invention of happiness in it.

Yeah, it's phone time.

ZACH Q., ESQ.

>   
> **"I'm nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody, too? / Then there's a pair of us — don't tell! / They'd banish us, you know. / How dreary to be somebody!  
> **  
>  / How public, like a frog  
> / To tell your name the livelong day  
> / To an admiring bog!"  
> 

And Zach had known Chris was going to the afterparty. The perfection of it wounds something in his chest, sets his mind racing that everything could be everything.

ZACH Q., ESQ.

> That was more like an entire poem than a quote, per se

>   
>  **that's because it is.**   
> 

> Also I'm willing to bet my left testicle it's by Emily Dickinson

>   
>  **so is a comeback imminent or what?**   
> 

Chris starts to feel possessed and panic driven again, takes a steadying breath to stave it off and touches Beau on the shoulder. "Hey."

Beau looks him in the eye for the first time in what feels like ages. They're going nowhere.

"I'm outta here."

She nods, empty.

"I'll call you."

*

Chris drives home with music so loud it shakes the car, unable to comprehend the lyrics but the sound is therapeutic. He races up the stairs, feels compelled by nothing toward nothing but fiercely _compelled_ nonetheless.

When he reaches his doorstep, rummaging for his ke—

The sight of Zach standing there before him like that. Gets lost in his brown eyes. This above all—

"What's wro—"

Zach cuts him off: "Just. Like. Have you ever thought, just, maybe—fuck, never mind . . ." Goes to leave, to walk past and walk away from him but Chris blocks it.

Chris clears his throat. "I'll be nobody with you. I'll read stupid books and listen to Lady fucking Gaga and, you know, it's cool if you pretend you can pull off gangsta and say that the laundry 'needs done' every once in a while without realizing it." Stares at Zach and wills him to understand.

"Chris."

"I'll watch every last Real Housewives show and every reunion part twelve from every city in the country on repeat until the TV fucking breaks and _like_ it, I—"

"Chris." Zach runs a sleek hand through his sleek hair sleekly and Chris watches, preoccupied with the way he moves. Zach gets close and his hand gripping Chris's chin and he puts his mouth over Chris's with an expression like despair. That slow-mo kiss that drags on like a long surrender. Something clicks and Chris moans—how could he not know?

The softly new conversation of their lips slows until Zach's able to speak, dark-voiced: "We should really go inside."

Chris can't answer, can't even think. He rushes inside and turns to see Zach still standing there, sees him in a heart-poundingly new light and steps toward him like a moth to flame, awkward and forgetting how to make Zach follow him inside.

Zach solves it, flurry of strong deliberate motion that has the door closed and Chris clutched tight to him for a new kiss—hot in the unlit room. The plushness of Zach's mouth catches Chris off guard and he moans again, which gets Zach's arms even tighter around him. Chris squirms until he can get his hands over Zach's—this impulse to feel him feeling _him_ for proof of something. And Chris wants more and more to be part of him, wants him feverishly and it's unlike anything he's ever felt with a girlfriend or a fling.

Zach's pressing his mouth ever closer, wetter, tongue darting out but restrained—enough to get Chris hard with thinking about what comes next. Zach's hand surprises under the hem of Chris's shirt, holds him just above his hip like he's afraid he'll flee at any moment—big wide hand with calluses and manicured nails.

Chris tilts away from the kiss to get at his jaw, registering the stubble under his light kisses as sensation and doesn't know or care if it's scratchy at all. But Zach wants Chris's mouth again, recaptures it with his teeth, sucks Chris's bottom lip and licks it and they're stumbling through the living room now.

Zach steps into him and Chris can feel his cock against his thigh, feels exaggeratedly big to Chris's heightened senses and a wave of white hot need blinds him for a moment. All is silence around them, seemingly calm and unbearably tense with potential at once: the sound of their spit slick lips faltering against each other, of leather cushions as someone pulls them down to the couch. 

Zach tries to dominate but Chris just won't have it—straddles him and distracts with a roll of his hips before leaning in to kiss the black-eyed desire on Zach's face—

Zach slips sneakily down on the couch, flicks open the buttons on Chris's shirt and chases it with his tongue. Gel caked hair tickles Chris's throat and makes him shiver—hot, wonderfully panicky shiver—groans and grips Zach's shirt at the shoulders, tugs until they've gotta separate for him to pull it over his head, look at each other and pant in the darkness for a beat.

Chris pulls Zach down for a sloppy kiss, all tongue and bruising, cock so hard his hips nudge up of their own volition. Zach moans deliciously. Chris wants it to go on forever.

"Fuck this," Zach mutters, sits back on his heels to undo Chris's belt with startling deftness. Chris feels himself start to sweat—it's suddenly realer and scarier but by now he's so fucking turned on it hurts.

It happens fucking fast and Chris's breathing crosses the line somewhere into the land of hyperventilation when Zach's tongue meets the tip of Chris's cock to lap up pre-come. Zach glances up with his brown eyes at the strangled sound Chris makes, grins and takes him deep without warning. 

Chris is embarrassingly close, attempts to communicate this but all that passes his lips is garbled pleas for more, faster, for Zach in general, and oh fuck is Zach hot and oh fuck he's got his own hand down his tight, fucking distracting skinny jeans, making involuntary sounds of his own around the cock in his mouth. Chris bats Zach's hand out of the way and takes over, jerking him hard and purposefully and Zach _mmm_ 's loud and long and pulls Chris closer by the hips like he's planning on inhaling him. His brow's creased, his hand's shaking and searingly hot on Chris's skin, his cock's so, so hard for him, he's the single most exciting thing in Chris's life and—

It doesn't last long but it's perfect, and they collapse in a sticky, half-clothed pile of limbs and expelled anxieties, fitting easily like puzzle pieces that belong together.

"So," Chris says, after their breathing has slowed somewhat. "That counts as a comeback for the poem, right?"

Zach laughs weakly and pushes him off the couch.

*


End file.
